Date: October 31, 2023
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Dr. Michelle Bartolo
Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, NC State University
Title: Patient-Specific Mathematical Modeling of Pulmonary Hypertension
Abstract: Patient-specific computational modeling offers an efficient, non-invasive method to better understand complex, multiscale pathologies, such as pulmonary hypertension. Combining medical images and hemodynamic data with computational fluid dynamics elucidates physiological mechanisms that underlie disease progression. In this study, we generate an automated framework using statistical change points to extract arterial measurements and their associated uncertainty from computed tomography scans. We predict blood pressure, flow, and area deformation in this reconstructed geometry by solving the one-dimensional cylindrical Navier-Stokes equations. Vessels too small to be imaged are represented by solving a linearized wave equation in an empirically driven, bifurcating fractal tree. Arterioles and venules are joined at each generation in a ladder-like manner by pulmonary capillaries. This multiscale approach allows quantification and exploration of system dynamics at several levels of the pulmonary circulation and under different hemodynamic conditions of the left heart. Our model finds that network geometry has significant impacts on pulmonary arterial pressure and flow dynamics and that pulmonary hypertension is associated with decreased shear stress and increased cyclic stretch in the smallest blood vessels.